you crossed the line
by MissiAmphetamine
Summary: What happens when Chris Pratt says 'kill Iron Man' and my brain replaces 'kill' with 'have sex with'. I apologise for nothing. [...when Tony looks up he sees pained but amused green eyes, staring out of a smeary mask of blood, and something weird happens in his pants - and then Quill hits Tony hard enough that he sees stars and his knees disappear altogether for a moment.]
1. Part 1

**A/N: edited 11/11/15**

* * *

**you crossed the line**

**pt 1**

So, a dive bar in the ass-end of the galaxy is not exactly where Tony had been expecting to spend his weekend. But he can look on the bright side; he still has his suit, there is alcohol, it is _free_ alcohol thank burly, blonde Thor, and at some point Pepper should figure out what has happened to him, and get the other Avengers to come and save him. He has a handy dandy Asgardian locator beacon built into the suit he has with him, so it should be an easy enough job to find him.

Unless of course...oh that's right. Pepper probably isn't speaking to him because of the incident with the green chick - what was her name? Galaxia? Tony can't remember now but it doesn't really matter what her name is - just that she's the one who took off from this falling-apart excuse for a space station _without bothering to take him with her_. Well shit. He didn't think he'd been that bad in bed. He smirks to himself, remembering that yeah, the past few days had been relatively strenuous. What's-her-name/Galaxia _had_ pushed Tony to his limits, but he thought he'd risen to the occasion.

But mind-blowing sex aside, without Pepper, Tony may be kind of fucked. He either has to figure out a way off this hunk of junk, or hope that Galaxia-or-whatever-her-name-is comes back, as the bartender said she would. She was the one who wrangled the free drinks for him, so she can't be too mad, Tony supposes idly, sipping at the blue concoction in his glass. It tastes like Barton looks after several paranoid days spent crawling through the Tower vents and dropping from the ceiling at intervals like some kind of heart-attack inducing jack-in-the-box. All sweaty and _gross_.

Tony wrinkles up his nose and spit-dribbles the rest of the mouthful he has back into the glass.

"Barkeep! Barkeep!" He waves imperiously - he's already drunk three ways to Sunday, all right, shut up, don't _judge_ \- and shoves the drink along the bar toward the weird-looking alien that shambles over, trying to count the thing's eyes. He keeps getting to thirty-two and losing count. "No offence, but your 'Butterfly Floater' tastes like a sweaty archer in a glass." He gets a bemused - or at least he _thinks_ it is bemused - look for that. He sighs. "Just...next on the list, would you?"

Tony nods and smiles encouragingly at the alien, and the alien barman finally takes the drink with a grunt and shambles away again, hopefully to mix up the next horror for Tony to sample. Tony has decided, in lieu of absolutely anything else to do, that he is going to drink his way through the bar's entire drinks list. And then maybe curl up in a corner somewhere and die.

And then Pepper will miss him, and send someone to come and find him.

Yes.

Exactly.

Shit, he is _so_ screwed. And the next drink is the color of pus. Oh; same consistency too. Nice.

"Bottoms up," he tells the barman, and takes a sip, nose wrinkled and shoulders hunching as if that can ward off the bad taste. But it tastes like honey, and sets off a warm buzz that spreads through Tony's body like liquid bliss, leaving him invigorated and _happy_, and he drinks three in a row. He suspects one of the ingredients might be rather similar to MDMA, but doesn't particularly care, just giggles quietly to himself. Maybe this - strictly temporary - stranding won't be so bad after all.

He's pretty sure his liver would disagree. Fuck his liver. What'd it ever do for _him_, anyway?

* * *

Three days of terrible food and fucking _amazing_ drink go past in a blur that contains no trace of sobriety - and okay, so Tony is beginning to get just a little worried about his incipient rescue - when a human face wanders into the bar. Tony's more than a few drinks in - not that honey-pus beverage of the gods, but back to working his way through the bar's drinks again. He's feeling edgy, jittery. He misses his workshop, and Pep, and his comfy ridiculously huge bed back at the Tower. He even misses Barton, the little fucker.

And then a human kid with sandy hair and - okay, _not_ a kid, maybe early 30s or so, but with a punk-ass look on his face and cocky kind of walk that makes Tony think of himself when he was just hitting his twenties. But he's not like that now. He's _mellowed_ since he reached his 40s. Not really, but, well, he never owned a red leather jacket, so that's _gotta_ be a point in his favor. Or was there the...the Armani? Was that...?

The human strolls on in while Tony's crinkling his brow and trying to remember if in fact he _has _ever owned a red leather jacket, right up to the bar next to Tony. He leans over it and calls for a drink, shooting Tony a sideways glance; assessing and sharp, and Tony's jerked out of his thoughts by the sight of a weapon at the man's hip.

Tony buries his nose in his drink, but his peripheral vision is on full alert, because the man looks like he'd be comfortable using the weapon. It looks like some kind of...stun gun? But Tony can't be sure unless he gets a closer look, which might not be a good idea. Tony getting a close look at strangers' weapons never works out well for the stranger, unfortunately. Or on rare occasions, for _Tony._

His suit is in his room, about four walls away. It should take less than a second to get to him.

And then the younger man sees him looking; he raises an eyebrow at Tony, all slouched over the bar, an amused look pasted on his face - not classically hot, but features all in the right places, and Tony suspects Pepper would call him _boyishly handsome, _and Tony would nod and agree with enthusiasm - but it feels like there's anger underneath. A sense of it edging along under the man's mask of neutrality. And then the boyishly handsome man flexes the hand that isn't holding his drink, like he's itching to hit something. Or Tony. Very possibly Tony. It's a very meaningful flex.

"Hey man," the dirty blonde says, all casual and friendly, with a jerk of his head to acknowledge Tony. "Peter Quill."

Tony swallows. "Uh. Hey. Tony Stark." He tips his drink at the younger man and then takes a sip from it, appearing to focus all his attention on his drink in the time-honored code between drinkers that says 'I see you but I'd rather pretend I didn't and drink myself into a stupor while maintaining the illusion that I am alone.' Peter Quill eyes him blatantly, and Tony eyes him right back, sneaky like a ninja.

"Come here often?" Quill asks after he's knocked back several drinks, and Tony's mouth helpfully answers without waiting for his brain's assistance, seeing as his brain is trying to figure out what the fuck the drink he just tried is doing to his stomach. Possibly eating its way out by way of something-that-is-not-an-exit, because holy god he thinks he may be on _fire_.

"You looking to pick me up?" comes out, and shit. _Shit._ Quill's eyes go a little wide and his head jerks back, and that mask of friendly slips for a second; enough for Tony to get a look at a whole lot of _mad_. But the man is silent and Tony babbles on, backed into a corner, and no, Tony Stark does _not _acknowledge the first rule of holes. Instead his mouth fires on fully automatic, and goddamnit he _will_ dig his way out of that hole or die trying.

"Because not that I'm not flattered, or tempted, but I'm actually waiting on a girl, so that would be...a...no... I guess. Unless of course you were _actually_ asking if I came here often, in which case the answer would be, no, this is in fact my first time."

"...yeah..." Quill says on an exhale, scratching at the back of his head. He squints at Tony, frowns. Bites his lip and widens his eyes, as if he's trying to look inside Tony's skull. And Tony's drunk enough that he's just going to wait and see where this is going. Yeah, that seems like a decision he's not going to regret at all. "...I don't get it."

"You don't get my _face?_" So Tony slurs a little. He's not proud.

"Well, _no_, I don't get the...the goatee, beard..._thingy_ you've got going on there - is that actually in _style _now? _Jesus_ \- but that's not actually what I meant. You _shit._" Quill slams his hand on the bar, and his voice goes _loud_ in a way Tony doesn't appreciate. Quill's radiating his anger as he shifts his stance, turning to face Tony full on, all tall and broad-shouldered and built like a mini-Thor, hand shifting to his weapon but not drawing it. Suddenly Quill looks perversely appealing and nerve-racking all in one.

"Am I missing something?" Tony's hackles go up. He leans toward Quill a little, jabbing his finger at what he's finally recognized hanging around the guy's neck and trailing down to his weaponless hip. "You have _a walkman around your neck_, you mouthy little _fuck_. Who the hell has a _walkman_ these days? Seriously. You know they have these things called mp3 players now, right? You don't_ have _to inflict that horror on yourself. Unless you're a masochist, in which case I can respect that. Other people's fetishes, totally not my business."

"Oh. Oh. Nice one, buddy." Quill's face darkens - it looks wrong on him, like he was made to be all friendly snark, and Tony's like, 97% sure he's not an evil villain - and he shifts on his feet, all fight and fury. "First you fuck my girlfriend, and then you insult my _mother?_"

Tony just has time to think - oh god, girlfriend, green chick, Galaxia-or-what's-her-name, oh shit that makes the worst kinda sense ever, but hang on, how the hell did I insult his _mother_ \- before the other man's fist meets his face. Tony would've dodged but he's drunk and his reflexes are slow and laggy, and his attempt to duck the punch results in a glancing blow to his cheekbone that smarts like a _bitch_, and him falling backward off his bar stool.

His hands move without him thinking, calling the suit with one swift motion, and then just as he's scrambling up to his feet - oh god his back, ouch, that hurts, maybe he's getting too old for this shit - Quill decides to lend a hand, helpfully hauling Tony up by the neck of his t-shirt. The guy's strong; Tony'll give him that.

"Okay..." he says in a strangled voice, because his shirt is _strangling_ him, ow, ow, ow. "Okay...I possibly, may have..._accidentally_ had relations with your girlfriend, but I can assure you, that was _not _my intent, so..." Where the fuck is his _suit?_ It should already be on him. And that's when he suddenly realizes that his suit is _not_ in his room, as he assumed but never actually _checked_ on over the course of the past several alcohol-sodden days. He must have left it on the unfaithful green girlfriend's ship. Well, that explains why Thor hasn't come to find him, at least. It's not that Pep's mad - necessarily - they're most likely just searching in the wrong damn place. Well _fuck_. This is going to be...unpleasant.

Tony's left with no option other than to slam his knuckles into Quill's nose, kneeing him in the balls for good measure, because fighting fair is not his game - he spars with Natasha on a bi-weekly basis when she's not on assignment; fighting fair would get him _hurt_, or worse, earn him one of her patented scathing looks. Quill drops his grip on Tony with a choked moan as he jackknifes double, trying to clutch at both his nose - gushing blood - and his crotch. He's mumbling something miserably and nasal as he staggers on the spot, and Tony feels sorry for him.

He'd probably like the guy under different circumstances. Cute. Good banter. Nice shoulders. Pretty green eyes. The adorable-but-kinda-dumb vibe that works until Tony get bored. Pep'd love him too. And now he's dripping blood on the bar floor and whimpering something that sounds like 'fucking_ dick_' all full of attitude and Tony's pissed, so he grabs Quill by the hair and slams his adorable-but-dumb-and-kinda-bloody face into Tony's knee. The younger man makes a gurgling sort of sound, and tries to fall over; Tony lets go of his hair with the aim of letting him do that.

Ohhh shit. Bad idea, bad idea! Tony's brain shrieks at him, as Quill stumbles back to his full height, dazed and seeping blood everywhere. It runs sluggish from his nose down over his lips - he swipes the back of his hand over his mouth, and coughs weakly. Tony backpedals across the bar - no one's going to step in and help him, he's on his own. Shit. Quill shakes his head as though he's trying to clear it, and then those pretty green eyes fix on Tony. And they're more 'rage' than they are 'pretty' right now. He surges across the room, moving fast and slick, and Tony dodges clumsy, but successful.

"Jesus Christ, calm the fuck down!" he yelps over his shoulder as he rabbits it, not expecting his plea to garner any results, and not getting any either. Quill comes after him, sliding over a table in the way between them and sending dirty glasses crashing to the floor. Tony's out what seems to be the bar's back door - it's heavy metal and opens outwards, okay, he can work with that - into a corridor with its grated flooring and blank grey walls. He stands behind the door, and when Quill comes skidding through, slams it as hard as he can into the man's face.

"Oh _shhhhit_. Man, not the face _again_, what the _fuck?_" Quill gets out all thick and rough as the door swings open again, hands hovering gingerly in front of his wounded face, his eyes a misery of pain. And Tony slams a fist into his gut and attempts to steal his gun. Only the thing hooks up onto Quill's belt somehow in some fiddly _stupid_ way, and Tony can't get it out. Not good, not go-od, he hums frantically in his head in singsong, wrenching uselessly at the gun.

"There's a knack," Quill says with a dry kind of humor through all the blood, and when Tony looks up he sees pained but amused green eyes that are anything but dumb, staring out of a smeary mask of blood, and something weird happens in his pants - and then Quill hits Tony hard enough that he sees stars and his knees disappear altogether for a moment. Quill lifts him up again - it's going to become a habit if they aren't careful, Tony thinks with blurry, drunk hilarity - and half-carries, half-drags him across the width of the corridor, slamming his back into the wall _hard_.

"Agh," Tony chokes and he thinks his back might be about to go out, he can feel the twinging in his sciatic nerve. Not right _now._ It is not a good time. Then it's: "_Fuck_. Careful with the merchandise," when he gets his breath back, grinning at Quill as blood trickles from the fresh split in his lip, his own blood disconcertingly warm on his chin.

"You _fucked _my _girlfriend!_" Quill yells, and there's an oddly impotent sort of rage in the way he grabs Tony by the shoulders and slams him repeatedly into the wall. It isn't going to do any real damage. But it still reeeally hurts though. But it's not a bullet to the brain, and hey, he's feeling optimistic today. He's looking on the bright side.

"I didn't know she was your girlfriend! It's not my fault she couldn't resist the Stark charm," Tony says in frustration that is partly real but mostly snarky, and when Quill gets in real close, he spits blood and saliva on the man's cheek. Quill rears back and gives him a disgusted look that is extremely comical considering the situation - both of them bloodied and panting, up against a wall, and hey brain, come back here, where are you going? Tony swallows hard and tries to wrestle a drunk and indiscriminate libido under control.

"You _spat _at me? Seriously?"

"You're...you're complaining about the _spitting?_" Tony asks, forgetting to try to get away in his disbelief, and also not really wanting to be hit in the face again, because damn, that _hurts_ without the suit.

"Yes!" Quill shouts, flailing one arm about as if he's a shitty teenager throwing a tantrum - his other arm pressed hard across Tony's chest, pinning him against the wall rather effectively - before scrubbing the gobbet of bloodied spit and most of the other blood off his face with his sleeve. It leaves behind streaks and smears, but clears some clean patches of skin on his face. His eyes are bruising beneath already - from beneath one, darkening on the bridge of his nose, to sweep beneath the other. They're still a very appealing green though, and Tony actually sort of likes the raccoon look on men.

Steve had needed to give Tony a talk once Barnes stopped being so murderous and started being, well, _less _murderous, warning him off trying to sneakily flirt with the ex-Winter Soldier. Steve is no fun. But this is not the time to get distracted, Tony. He forces himself to glare at Quill, who he's nearly 99% sure is not trying to kill him.

"I don't fucking know! Spitting seems like a _reasonable_ reaction to have when someone is trying to kill you!"

"I'm not trying to kill you!" Quill shouts - god the man is _loud_, inside voice buddy, Tony is only a few inches away, oh sweet Jesus, he's licking his lips and Tony is drunk and dumb and maybe he explodes a little on the inside. "Just..." Quill falters.

"Just beat the crap out of you a little bit, I guess" he admits all uncertain and gauche, and Tony wants to 'aww' and melt just a little bit, except he wants to beat the bastard repeatedly over the head slightly more. He doesn't do either though.

"_Why?_"

"You screwed my girlfriend, _Iron Man,_" Quill says all meaningful then, and narrows his eyes to ridiculous levels of Western-showdown. Tony holds back a giggle. "Yeah, I know who you are."

"Of course you know who I am. Everyone knows who I am," Tony says with remarkable aplomb, and smiles sweetly at Quill. "The question is, who are you?"

"I'm _Star-Lord!_ Jesus, why does no one know that? Star-Lord! Star. Lord. You know me now?" Quill gestures at his face, eyebrow cocked and expression so hopeful and puppy-dog that Lewis would cut whoever got between him and her attempt to feed him her famous homemade lasagna - her grandma's recipe and Tony has honestly never tasted a better lasagna. Tony likes Lewis.

Unlike Steve, she is _fun. _

And has _boobs._

"Nope. Sorry. No clue. Should I?" Quill's face falls, and Tony almost feels bad for the guy. Okay, so he does. His girlfriend has screwed another man - okay, screwed _Tony_ \- his face has taken more abuse than is really fair, and Tony has no idea who he is. "How about this though. How about we stop hitting each other, and go have a drink?"

"And why would I want to do that?" Quill asks sullenly, but his heart clearly isn't into it.

"Because of _this_," Tony says, and scramble-ducks like an eel out of Quill's grasp, walkman held aloft and teeth bared in bloody victory. "You try to hit, pummel, bruise, bloody, or otherwise injure me, and I will reduce this to its component parts in a _second._"

"_No!_" Quill's tone is desperate and strangled, and he goes white beneath the blood streaking his face. Tony freezes, his sense of triumph draining away, because that's raw pain in the other man's voice, and it's awkward and wrong and Tony is not okay with it. Not. Okay. Quill reaches one hand out toward Tony and the stolen walkman, but he doesn't move an inch. He's frozen to the spot as though he's terrified. "Please. Not the walkman. I swear I won't fucking hit you again, but don't hurt my walkman. _Please._"

Tony thinks that Quill might not kill him over a girlfriend, but he would definitely kill him over a walkman. He can't help but admire that kind of dedication to a piece of technology. "Then let's go have a drink instead. And no one will hit anyone, and nothing will get destroyed. Agreed?"

Quill twitches toward the walkman as though it's a magnet pulling him in, and his face is all kinds of frantic and cornered, the cord for the headphones dangling useless against his chest, his bruised-beneath eyes bright and needy. "Okay. Agreed. Whatever. Just give it back."

"I think it should be a hostage." Tony is sulky - because yeah, adrenaline coursing through his body or no, he is still drunker than...than something really drunk, and sometimes he gets sulky when he drinks, it's just a _thing_. Pepper cures it with hot chocolate and glares, and occasionally an actual pointy stick. He backs up a few steps as Quill sways toward him, fingers flexing and reaching out toward the walkman.

"I disagree." It seems Quill can do sulky too, only he does it with a _need_ vibrating in his voice that Tony lacks. It's pretty convincing, and that incredibly inappropriate surge of arousal makes itself known once more when Quill licks his lips again, and then gently nibbles the un-split side of the lower one. A beat passes. "I really have to disagree. I'm saying please here and everything. Honest. I won't try and beat the shit out of you again. Just...give the walkman back."

"I'm an idiot." Tony sighs, and then takes out the tape inside the walkman, and holds each up in separate hands. "I'll hold onto one for insurance. You can have the other back. Which do you want?"

Quill clenches his jaw, and then says reluctantly: "The tape."

"Fine, buddy - here then," Tony tosses the walkman lightly at him, and Quill swears in a panic, caught off-guard, and has to scramble to catch the thing before it hits the ground. The younger man's inelegant fumble for it ends with the walkman cradled gently in Quill's hands, and an injured and indignant expression on his face.

"I could've dropped that! I nearly had a damned heart attack you _fuck._ And _shit_, I knew I should've said the walkman!"

"You caught it. It's fine. Don't be such a baby - get over it," Tony says easily, shifting the tape around in his hands and reading the label - a mix tape? Shit, how old is this thing? He nods his head at the door they came bursting through, hoping the barman will forgive them the minor mess made. "Now move, _'Star-Lord'_. I need a fucking drink."


	2. Part 2

**you crossed the line**

**pt 2**

Peter glares at the short, cocky, _irritating_ fucker who is currently manhandling his cassette tape and humming to himself as he indicates Peter take a seat at the bar. _Asshole_. Peter glares harder to no effect, and then thumps sulkily up to the bar with shoulders hunched in defeat. Goddamnit, he's _Star-Lord_, what the hell? He has a _spaceship_ and he can't even take out some two bit so-called superhero who doesn't even have his suit on him?

"This is so freaking unfair," he mumbles, slumping down on one of the stools at the bar obediently. Iron Man, otherwise known as Tony Stark, otherwise known as a filthy fucking _whore_, sits down next to him, mix tape now nowhere in sight. He shoots Peter a shit-eating grin and waves for the bartender. Peter _can not_ _see_ why in the hell Gamora ran off to spend a dirty weekend with this arrogant - _short!_ \- asshole, who is not at all infuriatingly appealing.

"Hands on the bar, darlin'," Stark says, tapping a well-manicured finger on said bar, and Peter scowls and doesn't move a muscle. "All right. Let's try this again. Hands on the bar or your precious little _cassette tape_ will meet a swift and grisly end, and you know really I'd rather not - I have zero desire to destroy tech, even as ancient and useless as that tape may be, well, as it _is_ if we're being honest here and why not? - so why don't you just do what I tell you like a good little boy and we'll. All. Get. Along."

A beat passes.

"Asshole," Peter mutters, but shoves his hands onto the bar as ordered.

"There we go. Isn't it fun to cooperate instead of punching each other?" Stark says lightly and Peter curls his lip and shoots the older man a look.

"No," he says emphatically, and then: "You dirty old bastard," for good measure, and Stark affects a wounded expression, laying a hand over his heart and rounding that bruise-swollen mouth into an 'o'.

"Old? Jeez, easy on the ageist insults, kid. Your girlfriend - and I just want to say here, that scout's honor, I had no idea she was committed to anything or anyone other than a good time with yours truly - well, suffice it to say, she didn't seem to find my agedness an issue." Starks winks exaggeratedly, and a muscle in Peter's jaw twitches as he resists the urge to smack Stark one. Stark goes on before Peter can think of something cutting to shoot back at the older man.

"Bartender? Hey, hey you!" Stark waves at the tentacled creature, confident and self-assured as the creature sidles along toward them both. He makes an apologetic gesture at the incidental damage they'd done to the rundown bar. "My sincerest apologies about the mess. Hazard of being a handsome hero, you know."

The creature rumbles and seems to shrug, if something shaped like a nightmare can shrug. The damage they caused was practically restrained compared to what a dive like this would usually see. Stark grins as if he isn't bruised and bloodied; sunny and irrepressible and Peter hates that the expression is somehow weirdly endearing on the other man. Damnit, Stark's a dick; he has no right to look _endearing_. Unfair, Peter sulks as he scowls at his hands folded together on the bar, flicking sneaky glances at Stark, who is chattering away at the bartender, eyes manically bright in his battered face.

"So, am I still getting free drinks? Because I could really use a drink right now. And hell, one for my friend here as well. That ugly drink I've been sampling lately - watcha call it? Tr-something? Trilla-whatever? You know the one I mean." Stark flaps his hand, both flippant and commanding. "Greenish-yellow, weirdly delicious, made me keep trying to rub your head?"

The bartender rumbles in a way that makes Peter think Stark should shut the hell up before he gets a lot more tentacle than he wants, but then slithers off amiably enough, its tentacles snagging bottles from shelves with a slimy kinda gracefulness. The drink that is slid in front of Peter a moment later looks about as appealing as vomit mixed with shit and fermented for several weeks. For all he knows, that's exactly what it _is_. He's downed a lot of weird looking shit in the noble quest for drunkenness, but never anything that looked _this_ gross.

Peter side-eyes Stark suspiciously, but the dark-haired man just takes a sip himself and hums a contented sound, smacking his lips with enjoyment. Stark sinks down, elbows on the bar, and sighs, tension melting off him, leaving him limp and disheveled, grinning lopsidedly at Peter and looking damned endearing again, and okay so maybe Peter can see why Gamora was interested in the prick. Or not. No. Not. Not at fucking all, the guy's an asshole.

"Try it - you'll love it, trust me. Or are you chicken?" Stark asks, grin growing.

"Bawk bawk?" he queries, and Peter scowls and snatches up the glass.

"Shuddup. _Dick_." Peter takes a sip of the booger-colored shit and _ohjesusgod_ that tastes so gooood. He gulps back another mouthful, _mmm_-ing emphatically. "Oh man, that's _tasty_."

"I know, right?" Stark looks earnestly pleased and preens a little, as if he cares what Peter thinks, as if they're friends and not mortal enemies only having a drink because Stark has forced Peter into it. It's kind of sad, actually, the way Stark is trying to hide the increasingly obvious thirst for adoration so badly beneath his arrogance. The dude just wants to be worshipped and praised, and Peter thinks he's like a weird-ass cross between a cat and a dog, or hey - maybe one of those yappy-ass little dogs, all frenzied and jumpy 'n shit.

"The...best..."Peter drains back the glass, thinking idly with the small corner of his brain that houses things like common sense, that maybe whatever's in the drink isn't that good for him if it's having this effect. But the rest of his brain overrules with the insistent _more!_

"Mmph," he says and wipes the back of his mouth with his hand. "Yeah okay, that was good." A moment drifts by in which Stark looks like the smuggest asshole this side of the galaxy, and Peter feels a warm sense of euphoria sweeping through him. He holds tightly onto his grudge at Stark as whatever was in the drink threatens to melt his righteous anger away to nothing.

"But I still hate you." He glares, and Stark smiles and pats him patronizingly on the arm, and Peter pulls away indignantly.

"Barman, another drink for my sulky friend here," the older man declares too-loud, and Peter almost groans. He _wants _that drink, and getting it for free is one better than buying it himself, only this is the dude who slept with his sort-of girlfriend, and is currently holding his mix tape hostage.

"This isn't _fair_. What the fuck do you want, man?"

"To not have punching. Obviously. Punching and I...we don't get along," Stark confides. Peter levels a _look_ on Stark, who squirms uncomfortably after a moment.

"All right, all right. Look, I didn't mean to sleep with your girlfriend. If I'd known then I wouldn't have - well, actually...um...never mind. But the point is that I didn't know! I was on an ill-advised bender, she came onto me, and then we kind of lost track of time with the drinking and the _substances_ and the se- erm, _the you know_, and Pepper got angry at me because apparently three days had gone by without me returning her calls but I had _no freaking idea _it had been that long and I was still kinda -" Stark whistled and made the universal symbol for _off his fucking nut_, and then gulped at his drink before going on "- and then Galaxia -"

"Gamora! _Gamora_, man, Jesus, you don't even know her _name?_" Peter glares in disbelief, and then decides he wants more of that delicious fucking drink, so he drinks it and then waves the empty glass at a shame-faced looking Stark like a shaking finger of disapproval. Stark's eyes dance with mischief despite his apparent remorse, and Peter doubts the guy feels genuine goddamn remorse more'n once a year.

"Shit, yeah, Gamora! That was it. Weird name, huh? Anyway, we came here, and then...she _left_ me here. And I've been here ever since, drinking my way through the bar, because I think she opened a tab or something. Or maybe I did and I don't remember and I'm gonna be stuck with a huge fucking bill. Or maybe the bartender has a crush on me, 'cause hey, I've seen the looks the...thing's...been givin' me."

"It doesn't hardly have a face, Stark. And drinking yourself _under_ the bar's more accurate from the looks of it," Peter grumbles judgingly under his breath, somehow both offended and relieved that Stark didn't even know Gamora's name, and Stark barks a laugh.

"Wow, that was so frighteningly _Pepper_."

"Pepper's the...girlfriend you cheated on with my girlfriend?" Peter asks out of curiosity, only a little snippy and asking himself why in the hell he is having some mostly-civil conversation, except why not? He's feeling more and more _happy_ the more he drinks, and he is actually really good with that happening. Angry is overrated. Feeling good is _awesome_. _Fucking awesome. _Stark shakes his head.

"Oh shit no, I'd never cheat on Pepper; I do have some sense of self-preservation. Open relationship. Pepper's my one true love, so to speak, but we both...dally with other people now and then." Stark shrugs. "Took me a while to get used to it, but between her job and mine we spend so much time apart that it works better this way. Or so Pepper tells me, and I try never to argue with Pepper. Self-preservation."

Stark shoots Peter a lazy smile, and Peter has the feeling that Stark is just as happy with the idea of an open relationship as this Pepper lady. There's a short silence, both of them quietly working their way to the bottoms of their glasses, and that feeling of gentle euphoria swells deeper and deeper in Peter, suffusing him with warmth and goodwill. He finishes his third drink and starts on his fourth, perfectly content to sit in Stark's company. It's _nice_.

* * *

"You - you know you're maybe not a complete asshole," he says magnanimously too many drinks in, when the bruising Stark has made has ceased to hurt, and Stark smirks at him and claps him on the back, swaying unsteadily in his own seat.

"I was just thinking the same thing about you. Not a complete asshole - my exact thought. It's like we're on the same wavelength or something." He waggles his brows at Peter, and Peter blinks as his vision doubles and for a moment there're two Starks sitting in front of him, giving him what look suspiciously like come hither eyes and what the fuck, man? But he's not actually complaining. Those are quite some _come hither_ eyes, all melty and brown and deep, and the way Stark's nibbling at his lip is...yeah actually really way too appealing.

Peter swallows hard, feeling heat flare up and confusion along with it. Because yeah he's not opposed to having three-way with another dude and a chick, and he can appreciate the looks of another guy...but he normally doesn't wanna just bite the soft patch beneath another man's jaw like he kinda really wants to do to Stark right now.

His mind veers into the gutter; the delicious, confusing gutter. He can envision it all - pushing Stark's head up and mouthing over the stubbled jaw and down, maybe actually making Stark shut the fuck up for a moment, except for a stifled little whimper. Working his way down that neck in wet, openmouthed kisses and licks, and then fisting his hand in Stark's hair and jerking his mouth in to meet Peter's, kissing at his lips rough and biting until Stark's gasping, and those dark eyes go full black as his pupils blow wide with need.

Shit, what the fuck _is_ in this drink? Peter stares into it bewildered for a moment, brain reeling and falling down and giving up. And then he doesn't even care, because Stark grins at him, and Peter grins back and downs his drink, waving for another automatically.

"Gamora's, um, not actually my girlfriend right now," Peter admits, on his seventh drink, slurring like hell and not giving a damn. "We're on a...well, a break. She wanted it, not me - the break I mean - and I - I guess I'm not...not..." He doesn't bother finishing. He doesn't have to. Stark's look at his pathetic, drunken admission - _sad_mission - is sympathetic, and he reaches out and claps Peter on the shoulder. His hand is surprisingly strong, for a short, skinny guy, and warm and _nice_, squeezing and kneading before falling away just a touch too slowly, so his fingertips drag like want and heat and _good_. Peter sways on the bar stool and then slumps forward on his elbows on the bar, waving for another drink as Stark commiserates.

"Wow. That fucking _sucks_." Stark says in a heartfelt tone. And then he smirks briefly - a curl of his lip that Peter sees outta the corner of his eye. "I can't say I'm not _kinda hugely pissed off_ that you tried to beat the shit outta me over someone who's _not even your girlfriend_, but, y'know I can sympathize. Matters of the heart are pretty damn complicated." He taps the glowing circle beneath his shirt that lies directly over the center of his chest, and his nail makes a clicking, clinking sound. Suddenly transfixed, Peter reaches out slowly - squinting a little because hey his vision isn't so good right now - and tries to touch his fingertips to the pretty glowy light.

"What the fuck is -" _that man,_ he starts to say, curious and friendly, when Stark smacks Peter's hand down hard and without any kind of gracefulness, recoiling from him hard like Peter just spat in his face or something, nearly falling off the barstool in the process.

"Shit!" Peter grabs Stark by his arm and his shirt, and they both wobble for a second, nearly falling the fuck off before Peter steadies them. He grabs the bar for balance; jeez it feels like the bar is swaying under him, like a ship on a sea.

"No touching," Stark says half-sharp, half-apologetic. "No touching the arc reactor. Tha's my - my life right there. That's my damn heart, pretty much, and strange men in bars don't get to feel it up. Sorry."

"Whoa." Peter leans back and holds his hands up - _I'm not a threat_, his posture says, or at least he hopes it does. "Whoa, sorry, man. I didn't mean to...to whatever," he explains with a hint of a slur, vision quadrupling for a minute and whoa thass a lotta Starks. Then there's just one again and smirk is gone and it's taken the smolder with it, and Stark looks old and hard and unexpectedly dangerous and - and - _wounded?_ But definitely dangerous; dark eyes cold, and stress lines suddenly evident carved into his somewhat-bruised face.

Stark's hand settles over the light, hiding it beneath the press of his palm, a protective, uncertain gesture. He blinks and stares at Peter in the bleary way drunks have, as if he can't quite figure out what's going on. And then rubs at his chest with the heel of his hand, and clears his throat, smirking lopsided as he speaks fast. "No problem. It's fine. I just don't like people touching the, um, merchandise. Fingerprints are a bitch to polish off."

The older man is trying for wry and light but he looks like he's lost his equilibrium, his previous snarky, hyper tone sliding away, and Peter feels unaccountably bad for him. A weird sense of protectiveness toward Stark stirs at the sound of the naked vulnerability in the man's voice. He blames the drink. He also doesn't make a big deal about Stark's loss of bravado - just nodding easily and mumbling something inane about it being _'fair enough'_ before turning back to the bar and cupping his hands around his half-full glass.

He slides the cup back and forward over the bar between his hands for a minute or two, shooting sideways glances at Stark - drinking steadily, tension easing out of his shoulders - before daring to speak up.

"So that's the...reactor?" Peter doesn't know much about Stark and Iron Man really, only smatterings of gossip - he tends to avoid Earth. So long and thanks for all the memories that hurt too much for him to want to go back. Or something like that, anyway. His grandfather is dead, and there's nothing left him on that little planet but two graves. He's never been to visit 'em. Doesn't plan on it either. _Damn_. He stops playing with his drink and _drinks_ it, welcoming the honey-glowing-happiness that comes with it. Stark is staring at him funny, and he grins in return, over-bright 'n cheery.

"...Yeah," Stark says at last, thoughtful, eyes unfocused. "It's the arc reactor. My baby. It kept me alive after some assholes kidnapped me, and shot me full of my own weapons - not in that order. Technically I don't actually _need_ it to keep me from getting a heart full of shrapnel anymore - they opened me up and got all the nasties out, about eight months ago - but...I'm attached." Stark summons a grin and shrugs, but it all sounds pretty fucking horrible, actually.

"Well hey, it makes a pretty stylish fashion statement, so..." Peter says stupidly, and curses himself for it. _Fashion statement?_ He sounds like a dick. But Stark chuckles, casually dipping a finger in his drink and sucking it clean and _god_ the gesture makes liquid heat go straight to Peter's groin. Peter goes with the feeling.

Why not. Fuck it.

He waves for another drink when he realizes his current one has somehow magically disappeared. "So if it's not keepin' you alive then..._can_ I touch it?" Stark hesitates; cocks his head to the side and eyes Peter up and down, tongue flicking out to slide back and forth over a split at the side of his lower lip that makes the whole lip a little puffy. Peter resists the urge to bat his eyelashes, no matter how stupidly appropriate it seems.

"You break it you bought it, Han Solo," Stark says, fast, as though he's afraid he'll take the words back before he's even finished speaking, _and doesn't want to_. Peter grins at the reference as Stark shifts so that his torso is turned full toward the younger man, his fingertips tap-tap-tapping at the side of his glass with nervous energy. He doesn't lift his shirt; Peter's glad and disappointed all at once. He can make the reactor out well enough through the shirt though, on close examination.

Stark flinches when he actually touches it with two fingers, running them a quarter of the way around the just-barely-raised rim. It's not cold, like Peter would've have thought it'd be, being metal, and it's smooth and frictionless under the cotton of Stark's shirt. He pauses at that quarter circle point as Stark makes a short intake of breath, and then pulls his hand back just a fraction, fingertips hovering.

"It doesn't hurt, does it?" Peter slurs and blurs the words a little through his alcohol-thickened tongue, and nearly blushes. Stark shakes his head.

"Not to the touch. Nah, go for it," Stark says offhand and shrugging, but there's a breathiness to his voice that Peter doesn't miss. In the headiness of drunken euphoria he isn't sure but maybe he knows what it means. He slides his fingers in, to the center, ignoring that he's been touching too slow and too long and too damn gentle.

He flattens his hand over Tony Stark's chest; palm blotting out most of the light, and fingers pressing onto cotton-covered skin, the heat radiating off the older man. There's an intimacy to the touch that Peter immediately recognizes as _fucking addictive_. He can _feel_ Stark's heart beating under his hand; the thrumming pulses coming through the metal, and thumping against his palm; it's fast in contrast to the man's shallow, dragging breaths. When he slides his gaze up to meet Stark's, the other man's eyes are fucking _swamped_ with pupil, and his swollen lips are parted.

"You still got your heart then, huh?" Peter asks, stupid and dazed.

"Yeah," Stark answers just as dumb and breathless, and then blinks away his daze and _grins_, eyes sparking and dark. "Yeah. Still got that." And Peter's hand is still on Stark's chest, he realizes - palm on the reactor and fingertips pressing firm against flesh that feels lumpy and scarred to idly searching fingers. He pulls his hand back then and hides his blush in his glass - the bartender having kindly refilled it for him. His fingers tingle and he rubs them on his pants leg to try to dispel the feeling, while Stark smiles knowingly, the fucking _jerk_.

* * *

At some point they end up slumped in a corner of the station's corridor, having been cut off from the sweet, sweet liquor - although they'd conspired through a complex array of hand gestures and facial expressions to have Peter swipe a bottle of booze while Stark neatly distracted the bartender. Their silent communication had been fucking _boss_. Peter isn't afraid to admit they seem to make a good team; Stark is more than easy to read when he wants to be.

So now they are on the floor and Stark is clutching the cassette player, their heads knocked together as they listen to the music through the headphones Peter holds up for them both. The music sounds tinny and wrong like this, and the volume is shit, but Stark is warm and grinning and has his leg all hooked over Peter's, so Peter doesn't complain. Because he wants Stark there, right there, only maybe a bit more on his lap, now he thinks about it... Yeah. On? Sinking down and up and down and...

God, man, what the hell is wrong with him? Sure, love of the, ah, _mano e mano_ type - or _any_ type, really - isn't exactly uncommon in this big, crazy galaxy, but neither is it something Peter ever really associated with himself. Not when there are women available, at least. But Stark is...Stark is...

"_Hot Chocolate?_" Stark asks rhetorically and scathingly as the track starts, and Peter can't tell if he's really scathing or just good-naturedly teasing, as the other man lifts his head and shifts back a little to meet Peter's eyes, his eyebrow arching. The corner of Stark's mouth twitches in a smile, and he shifts the leg slung over Peter's thigh as he moves closer again, pressing their temples together. It doesn't make it any easier to hear the music, but it does make Stark's five o'clock shadow rasp on Peter's as they both settle, and damned if it doesn't make tingle-tickles slide straight down his spine.

Yeah, this is happening isn't it?

He thinks he should probably just accept it.

Stark goes on with the criticism: "_Really?_ Don't you have any modern music out in space? Damn, I _really _wish I had my suit now - I'd fucking school you in music, Solo."

"Hey! My mom had good taste," Peter defends half-seriously with a shrug and a fond little smile that he can't hide, because yeah, his _mom_. Maybe Stark was only ragging him, or maybe he hears the past tense and _realizes_, or maybe he just doesn't want to be a dick, because he shuts up - for fucking once - and swigs at the bottle of liquor Peter had snagged. And then he passes it to Peter, their fingers deliberately bumping and sliding together. Peter drinks long as Stark all but climbs into his lap - pressing against Peter's side hard and crooking his knee so that his lower leg snugs up to Peter's - and weirdly it doesn't feel weird.

There's honey-sweet booze exploding on his tongue and euphoria and lust fueling each other in his belly and suffusing his whole self, and everything feels right in the world, as Stark closes his hand over Peter's to guide the bottle to his lips and take another drink.

It's Stark who kisses him, finally, when the purloined bottle is nearly empty and they're sprawled on the limply, singing along to _Hooked on a Feeling_.

"..._Lips as sweet as candy_..." Peter warbles off-key, grinning and loose-boned, while Stark slumps half against his chest. It's comfortable and it's good, and he's forgotten all about his broken heart under the warm weight of Stark's body.

"Oh, oh I like this one. Classic," Stark says of a track, slurring and smirking, lifting his eyes to Peter's and they're a bare inch apart and yeah Stark's flirting for fucking sure. "All right. Verdict? You got okay taste in music, Ace. Little outdated, but not bad, considering the source. I have a few suggestions though. Additions. Subtractions. Maybe if you're a good boy, Santa'll bring you an mp3 player - you know what that is, Solo? It's like a cassette tape, only a million times better in every way." Stark's smirk grows wickeder: "Are you a good boy, Quill?"

There are surface differences to how a woman flirts than how a man does, but it's not different enough that Peter doesn't recognize it. Anyway, Stark's not very subtle. At all. Peter licks his suddenly dry lips as Stark's hand settles on Peter's upper thigh, a few tiny shifts somehow pressing his body _way_ more snugly to Peter's.

Oh Christ. The man is like an eel, all sinuous muscle-under-skin and flexible as hell. And then Stark's fingers play delicately over Peter's leg, edging up toward his crotch, and Peter bites his lip hard, failing to resist the urge to thrust his hips up a fraction.

"Wha...?" Peter forgets the next lines and Stark looks delighted, and _damn _Peter's dick is so hard it's not funny. He doesn't know what the fuck is going on or why he's so hot for this cocky, won't-shut-up asshole. But. But. But then Stark's fingers dig rough into his jaw as Stark tugs Peter's face downward, lifting his own face up and pressing his mouth messy and fierce to Peter's.

Electric.

It's like an electric shock; a hot, damp, rough shock, as Stark's carefully trimmed beard scrapes against Peter's stubble, and his lips crush to Peter's, his tongue a hot, fleeting swipe that feels like some kind of filthy heaven. And then he pulls back, sitting up and half disentangling from Peter, _grinning_ and staring at him like he's waiting for a score.

"I's a nine," Peter slurs obligingly, lips feeling all tingly as he scrubs a hand roughly - clumsily - though his own hair. Stark fucking _kissed_ him. The older man tries to grin, but there's an insecure edge to it that he can't hide.

"Only a nine?" he asks, coy as any girl, and Peter huffs a laugh, suddenly wanting to -

"Go again then," he says to Stark without thinking, and then his hand is sliding behind Stark's head, shaping to the curve of skull, fingers buried in short dark hair. And Peter's kissing Stark this time - _he's_ in charge, fuck yeah, he's killing this. Who's the boss? Fucking Star-Lord is, that's who.

Peter starts off easy; kissing: level one. Just warm, soft lips at first - parting and pressing and catching, _teasing _with hints and licks of tongue that send heat and want raging through him, and hopefully Stark too. Stark - greedy, bossy fucker, Peter thinks dizzily with drunken fondness - keeps trying for more. When Peter opens his mouth properly to the kiss at last, Stark makes an urgent, needy growl and grabs at the shoulders of Peter's jacket like a limpet.

He licks into Stark's mouth, owning the damn kiss. One hand curls possessive at the nape of Stark's neck, and the other slides around him, dragging him up onto Peter's lap, knees slotting either side of Peter's thighs. Right where Peter wants him. Stark whimpers into his mouth at the effortless shift - fucking _whimpers_, and grinds down, and oh holy fucking shit that is _good_.

They're dry fucking in the corridor of a shitty-ass alien space station like - well, not like kids, but like dirty, drunken adults with no self-respect, and Peter doesn't even care. _Fuck_ self-respect. He just wants...

Wants...

Stark's mouth is hot and slick and headydizzywant_more_, and Peter all but fucks it with his tongue, and Stark just moans and grinds down so goddamn greedy for him, and Peter totally understands now why Gamora fell into bed with the cocky fucker. He _really_ doesn't blame her anymore.

Tony fucking Stark is kind of irresistible.

_Especially_ when he's rocking on Peter's lap, sucking on the tip of his tongue while one hand rubs Peter's raging erection through his pants. Oh _holyfuckingjesus_.

_Yeah_. This is totally fucking happening.

* * *

**A/N: Please review! There'll be one more chapter to come - mostly pwp I imagine ;)**


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